Chapter 16
Present Day
Two days after Calla left her in Arles, Vivi found herself loitering in front of the Forster, a weekday stream of dogwalkers
and joggers coursing around her. Jet-lagged, aimless, she didn’t know exactly how she’d ended up back at the museum. Maybe
she hoped for a glimpse of Blue Mirror, even though there’d be no way to access the painting now. It’d be shielded in Gallery C, protected by the guards who’d regard
her with the faintly suspicious apathy they saved for overeager patrons. Abel hadn’t outright stated that she was banned from
the Forster, so there’d be no legal recourse for her curiosity. But she remained outside, stalled by her own shame.
In her most secret of hearts, she knew what she was hoping for. It was noon. Samuel usually brought his lunch, a sandwich
from the corner bodega or a Tupperware of his ex-wife’s newest creation, but occasionally, he got restless and walked the
streets with a granola bar like a modern flaneur. She longed for a glimpse of his striding confidence, the clear joy in his
gaze as it swept around his surroundings. With him, she often wondered if joy was something you could borrow, like a toothbrush
or a spare T-shirt. Used, then returned, none the worse for the wear.
Samuel deserved to know that he was the one who’d led her to the journal buried under the bench in Arles.
Him and Dr. Dirt. Maybe he’d even know what to do next.
They’d always leaned on each other when one of them encountered an art conundrum they couldn’t solve alone.
Their minds seemed to skip with the same cadence; words were often extraneous between them.
But now the silence was of a different sort, more conclusive. Many times since the night she left the Forster, she’d composed
emails to him, hoping to explain it all, thinking that if she could find the most correct and earnest arrangement of words,
he might forgive her.
I would never hurt the art—
I do love you, in the only way I know how—
She deleted each email without sending it.
Vivi counted the days. A little over a week between the moment when Calla appeared on the museum steps and this moment, when
she stood alone.
After all that, she didn’t even have her great-grandmother’s journal anymore. Calla had taken it with her when she’d left
Maison de Notre Rêve, though Vivi didn’t understand why. It wasn’t like Calla could read French. But maybe Calla’s reason
was as simple as love. That was more than Vivi could say for herself. Her own rationale had never been so clear.
At this point, giving up agency would be a relief. Maybe the past had yielded all it would.
Then, as she turned from the Forster, she heard a dinging alert on her phone. She harbored a fleeting thought that Samuel
had glimpsed her from his office window. Maybe he wanted her to meet him, to make everything right again. She fumbled to unlock
her screen, but it wasn’t a text. Instead, an email had arrived from Paul Quan.
To: Vivian Nguy?n [v_nguyen@]
From: Paul Quan [[email protected]]
Subject: an offering
Vivi,
I can’t seem to shake my curiosity about our conversation, these weeks later. Was the mysterious and melancholy artist your
Ly after all? Did he stay with Justine for the entire summer? In rereading my book manuscript—oh, endnotes, dreaded endnotes—I
see that summer of 1936 is an oddly silent one for Blanc, especially for one so typically prolific in his correspondence.
It’s as if a slice of his history has been gobbled up, leaving not a crumb behind for a scavenger like myself. It perturbs
me, this silence.
And then I return to your letter from Ly with its strange sundial and all the yearning, the regret. There is something in the hand that feels important. Like a snag
of thread in an otherwise faultless tablecloth. I have honed an instinct for anomaly in my later years. Maybe now, I can admit
that you might not be quite as inept a researcher as I thought. Or maybe it’s simply a case of the broken clock being correct
twice a day.
As an apology for my brusqueness, I have something to offer in return for the letter you (stupidly) relinquished. This morning,
I unearthed in one of my digital trash bins a scan of Blanc’s shipping log from 1943. (My organization, I confess, is not
exemplary.) The log was incomplete and largely nonsensical to me. Normally, I might have discarded the page; what evidence,
after all, can a stack of numbers and addresses really give us?
But then I saw one entry that stood out from the rest. Instead of a street address, it was simply the name of a town—uncommon for someone like Blanc, who was regular in his denotations, if nothing else.
“The house on the ravine, Long Xuyên, Viet Nam.” I couldn’t find a house that matched the description in Blanc’s source material. Why, I asked, would my old friend
have an interest in an obscure spot in a country he’d never visited or expressed interest in?
It might be a coincidence. An aberration. Who am I to say! I’m including a copy of the shipping entry. You’ll notice that
Blanc sent rolls of canvas, paints, thinning agents, and sardines. A motley yet notable cache, no? Maybe it’s worth your time
to investigate. (It is not worth mine!) Despite my better impulses, I find myself rooting for you.
Fortitude!
PQ
PS. I’ve been thinking of a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that I encountered last week. It reminds me of your Blue Mirror. “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” Beautiful, isn’t
it? Sad too. We never can really see each other, not even in the poetry of our fantasies.